


An Unexpected Therapist

by Shadsie



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angst, Discovery of Indivudality, Drama, Existential Crisis, Gen, Non-standard warnings apply, Not a violent fic but suicide is mentioned and is a heavy plot point, Paths to Healing, Post Season 5, Psychology, Ships are mentioned but not the main plot point, Suicide, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:54:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24248383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadsie/pseuds/Shadsie
Summary: After the dissolution of the Galactic Horde's hive-mind, the clones are having trouble adjusting to the concept of individuality and with finding their own identities.  Some are coping with the help of the Etherians while some are falling into complete despair.Hordak has settled into a career he'd never asked for as a therapist for his brothers.   It was better than being executed for war crimes, he supposed.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Entrapta/Hordak (She-Ra)
Comments: 32
Kudos: 422





	An Unexpected Therapist

**An Unexpected Therapist**

  
  
  
  
When he saw the figure cresting the jutting on the cliff-side, it was already too late. He set off running and issued a shout.   
  
“Brother! No! Don’t!”   
  
The man stepped calmly off the edge. Birds scattered from the trees below it. After that, all was silence.   
  
  


* * *

  
  
“Jordan stepped off a cliff the day before last.”  
  
“As I have heard.”   
  
“I found him too late to stop him. I tried.”   
  
Red eyes shined in the dimly-lit room. The person regarding them did not feel the least bit intimidated like one of the typical planet-born would have. His own eyes shined a gentle green and this area proved calming, a direct-opposite of the sterile, brightly-lit white halls of the places where they were always being watched before. There was a beauty in the darkness.   
  
The two individuals – and that’s what they were, the one with the green eyes had to keep reminding himself- sat across from each other. There was some clinking and banging on the other side of the wall and a yelp of “No, Wrong! No!”   
  
“Did I trouble you at a bad time?”   
  
“No, not at all, although I had best check on my lab partner.”  
  
As Hordak rose from his chair the door to the room slid open. A tuft of purple hair waved at him as Entrapta peered in. “Were we too loud? I’m sorry!” she said quickly. Before Hordak could even open his mouth, she was at a rattle and penting her fingers together sheepishly. “I kind of…was _not_ … reconfiguring the microwave’s settings to handle a compact nuclear charge – okay, I sort of was! But it’s okay! It didn’t explode – much!”  
  
A figure clad in a blue apron appeared behind her holding a small plate with a tiny, smoking sausage upon it. “Thermal frank, anyone?” he asked.   
  
Hordak looked to his guest. “It is a form of nourishment,” he clarified.  
  
“I do not require nourishment at this time,” the guest answered.   
  
“Okay!” Entrapta exclaimed. “We’ll just be…um… cleaning up the mess while you two talk. Have fun!”   
  
Hordak smiled fondly as she left and the door slid sealed behind her.   
  
The guest smiled dumbly, not entirely sure what to make of the situation. This was entirely new to him. “I…recognize her face?” he ventured. “I believe I saw her briefly when…when the Great Unlinking occurred. And…some…memory-bleed?”  
  
“To be expected. Try not to be overwhelmed.” Hordak was smiling broadly now. “Entrapta can be a bit…surprising.”   
  
“And she is to you?”  
  
Hordak wanted to say so many things and struggled to find words – spoken words, anyway, that his brother-clone could understand. They were not linked together in mind anymore and were free from their over-mind. All communication was now speaking aloud and various forms of body-language, much of it borrowed from Etherian customs and much of it ill-understood and awkward. Hordak was well-versed from his many years here while his “family” was like a bunch of newborns. He supposed that’s what they were – newborns, though not quite as physically helpless.   
  
It had been months now since the Heart of Etheria had found its true mistress or pair of mistresses, actually, since it was the love of two hearts that had stabilized it. It had been months since She-Ra had chosen to spare him while destroying Horde Prime. Hordak dreamt about it nearly every sleep-cycle he took. She could have easily destroyed him to take out her enemy; after all, he had been her enemy, too. Instead, they had shared something completely unspoken. Strange that a simple act of curiosity and mercy deep in the past had ended up being his salvation. He and Adora saw each other every once in a while, a necessity regarding the needs of his brethren. It was as if they regarded each other as “even” in terms of life sparing life, since they never talked about it. 

Hordak had settled in Dryl with Entrapta. She had modified the main entryway into her castle to make it easy-access. She was not particularly happy about it, but she didn’t want to continually rescue clones from her traps or to clean remains out of the more deadly ones that they were likely to blunder into, so she had been convinced. She still had several wings of the castle to play “run the gauntlet” in. Hordak couldn’t say that he liked her recklessness, but he was powerless to stop it. It was the fact that Wrong slowed her down with his following that worried him most – both for her and for him. He was getting the hang of things around here surprisingly quickly.   
  
“Wrong.” That was the name that one had chosen for himself, ultimately. It puzzled Entrapta’s friends, as many of the habits of Hordak’s brothers did. No one called the young clone “Wrong Hordak” anymore, but had shortened it to “Wrong” or “W.” He had insisted upon keeping the name of “Wrong” because, in his words, “He had been wrong” in his unquestioning worship of Horde Prime and he appreciated his encounter with enlightening data. He didn’t mind that his naming was initially an accident. Hordak confessed that his had been once, too – something that he’d taken for himself for a lack of descriptor before it had felt good to have a name.   
  
Some of the brothers had been seeking him out to ask him for names. He usually deferred to Entrapta on this matter as it was something that she really enjoyed doing and because she named everything in her life – robots, computer interfaces, tools… She said that naming objects gave them a personality, a “soul,” for lack of a better term and given his experiences, he couldn’t agree more. Most were choosing their own names, something that Hordak encouraged.   
  
“Entrapta is…” Hordak ventured, he began to say _companion_ or _mate_ , something that his visitor might understand, what came out was; “Entrapta is my everything.”   
  
“You have found another worthy to worship after…after…”  
  
“No,” Hordak corrected him. “We are equals. We enjoy each others’ company. We take care of each other.”   
  
The clone gestured gently to his chest with one hand. “Like us?”  
  
“Somewhat. Not exactly.”   
  
“I am confused, brother.”   
  
“It will take time.”   
  
Hordak poured his guest some tea. It wasn’t something he used to drink, but he’d grown accustomed to it. It was something that Entrapta said was proper to serve guests and it was a lot less harsh to the tongue than her fizzy-drinks. Hordak then held out a small vial with glowing green contents, offering to add it to the tea. He held back when the visitor appeared frightened.   
  
“This is not purification,” he said. “Do not worry. It is a facsimile, a replacement for our requirements. Entrapta aided me in perfecting the balance of amino acids.”   
  
“So it is not-?”   
  
“It is not recycled from the dead.”   
  
The clone gave a nod, consenting to taking a dose with his tea upon being relieved.   
  
“Have you yet chosen a name for yourself?” Hordak asked.   
  
“Y-yes.”   
  
“I would like to hear it.” He smiled gently to try to reassure the clone that he was worthy of it.   
  
“Pickles. My name is Pickles.”   
  
“Pickles?” Hordak’s ears perked in curiosity.   
  
The clone gave him a look of embarrassment and pressed the tips of his index fingers together, a habit he’d no doubt recently learned. “A foodstuff that Queen Glimmer offered us in Bright Moon. I enjoyed them.”   
  
“Interesting. I like it.”   
  
Pickles’ mouth went wide with glee. “It is not… too literal, is it?”   
  
“The people of this planet enjoy literal names,” Hordak assured him. “Entrapta enjoys building traps. Bow enjoys wielding a particular weapon. Scorpia is of a lineage resembling a type of arthropod. Glimmer uses magic derived from light.”   
  
“It is not wrong to have a name,” Pickles said to himself with his ears dipped.   
  
“It is not. Let the power of your name flow through you.”   
  
“I am afraid,” Pickles confessed. “That is why I sought you out – not just to give you the news about Jordan. I am afraid…that I might do what he did – without even any war to fight… and being given the honor of becoming a Vessel is no longer an option.”  
  
“Your eyes are turning.”   
  
Pickles looked up, peering into a mirror on the wall behind Hordak, noting the cyan traces at the edges of his eyes. “Yes,” he answered. “It means that now we are truly without Horde Prime, lacking connection.”   
  
The magic of Etheria was having a curious effect on the clones. In some of them, the colors of their eyes and teeth were losing the green luster that Prime had engineered them with. It was a neutral effect, but indicative of their loss of connection. Entrapta had been doing studies on it. Hordak had to intervene in an “easing” capacity in regards to her frightening some of the more timid ones with her barrages of questions. Wrong helped in this regard, as well, eager to show his brothers the ways of newfound freedom and to aid the “mother” he’d imprinted upon. She’d uncovered that the new colors were, in part, a psychological effect: When a given clone found that they had a favorite color, that color usually started showing up in their features. Hordak couldn’t remember when he’d decided that his favorite color was red. He’d probably discovered it in some violent way that had long been erased from him, a memory that he could not yet recover.   
  
He also enjoyed black and shades of dark blue, which was why his hair wore its blue-black shade again. Now he had the pleasant memory of Entrapta dyeing it for him, rather than him doing it alone. She liked helping him with his eye shadow in the morning, as well.   
  
“There is… no one in my head anymore,” Pickles said cautiously. “No one but…”  
  
“Your own voice?”  
  
“Yes…and it’s terrifying! I don’t know what to do anymore! At first it felt…” 

  
He gestured with his hands and touched the back of his neck. The clone did not have the words he wanted and making motions indicating that he wanted to share something in images and sensations and was at a loss with the loss of the “telepathy” that had been previously natural to their kind. Before he knew it, Hordak reached out a hand and touched his, trying to “ground” him. He used to do something similar to his Imp when the little creature would become agitated and he knew what signs to look for to indicate that it would work rather than causing further panic.   
  
Imp, of late, had been gaining a modicum of his own independence. He was currently visiting his Uncles Kyle and Rogelio and Aunt Lonnie for the week.   
  
“At first it felt…free,” Pickles continued. “We were all just standing there, but it felt like I was finally in control of myself, like I didn’t have any…compulsions. I looked up at the sky and saw colors. It wasn’t going to hurt anymore to not be…what are the words? On-mission?”   
  
“You were aware of your own thoughts for the first time, weren’t you?”   
  
“I think I might have felt something like it before, but it was forbidden.”   
  
“It is not forbidden any longer to have something that is only yours.”   
  
Pickles noticed that Hordak was touching his collar. He was dressed uniquely, in a suit of body-armor with a pinkish-purple crystal on the collar. Pickles had not yet felt comfortable in trying out clothing other than his standard Horde-uniform. A few of the brethren had been trying new things – even going so far as to allow themselves to be given something called “makeovers” by the natives of this planet. It seemed to be a particularly popular hobby in Bright Moon. 

“How do you deal with the silence?” Pickles asked desperately. “I feel… so alone. Even with the others around me…” He hunched over, chest to knees, hugging them and burying his face. “I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t know how to be!”  
  
Hordak calmly poured him some more tea, letting him talk.   
  
“I’m trying to know what to do – I want to be good, but I don’t know how… there’s nothing there telling me…”  
  
“Good boy,” Hordak finished for him. “You don’t have that anymore.”   
  
Pickles quickly nodded.   
  
“Can you?” Pickles began to ask, “Can you maybe… link us all up again? We would all accept you as our leader. We could have a purpose again! We wouldn’t be alone!”  
  
Hordak snarled. He got up from his chair in one swift motion. “You would have ME be a new Horde Prime?!” he yelled.   
  
Pickles cringed. He’d done something wrong.   
  
“When Horde Prime tried to take from me everything I’d ever earned!” Hordak raged, “My name, my life, HER!”   
  
A rapping came from the other side of the wall. “Hey, would you two keep it down in there?” Entrapta complained, “We’re trying to re-calibrate Emily’s imaging systems! It’s delicate work!”   
  
Hordak sighed and sat back down. “You might also want to speak with my lab partner. She has her own problems regarding understanding purpose and connection with her own people, but she…strangely… has a sort of knack with us.” 

This is how the “Great Unlinking” had gone: First had come the Confusion, then the Tears (accompanied by Wrong preaching his heart out at the time about Freedom), then certain stages of Grief, followed, for most, by something of a Jubilation in regards to newfound Freedom.   
  
Hordak had found that the native Etherian population had been surprisingly non-hostile to his brethren in all of this. They had been very happy to take his brothers by the hand – often literally – and encourage them to feel the grass and experience the warmth of the planet’s most powerful magical moon. Perhaps it was only because they had witnessed the rebirth of She-Ra and noted her attitude toward the whole mess. Hordak was wary that the people of Etheria could be experiencing their own Appeal to Authority. As it was, they were, themselves, accustomed to Princess Rule and the Rule of Queens and his own rule, although all of it, even his strict military dictatorship lacked the peculiar flavor of a hive-mind.   
  
A part of him had hoped to have something of a “happy retirement” with Entrapta, but that, apparently, was not his destiny. As it was, he was lucky that neither he nor Entrapta had been tried and imprisoned or executed for war crimes. The Princess Alliance had decided to let the past rest. Further destruction would not bring back the fallen, and right now, the pair served a useful function.   
  
Too many of the clones, after the initial rush of becoming free had fallen deeply into Depression. Pickles’ predicament was exactly why. While it had seemed, at first, like most of them had been able to shrug off an existential crisis, it was not the case when left enough time. Even Wrong shifted back into desiring a central figure for validation and had his bouts of sobbing every now and again. Entrapta was amazing at snapping him out of it.  
  
Then again, in Hordak’s view, Entrapta was just amazing, in general.   
  
Even with the support of what amounted to a planet full of friends willing to offer support, a great many of the clones, in terror of their new existence had taken their own lives. It was, of late, becoming an epidemic. 

Hordak supposed that he was the logical place for them to turn to, as one of them and as the one who had survived deprived of Horde Prime the longest. As it was, he had trouble keeping his patience sometimes. He had a desire to help, but his brothers could be overbearing and he had what Entrapta called “grumpy syndrome.”   
  
“We would all accept you,” Pickles said. “You are the strongest among us.”   
  
“I would like to show you something,” Hordak answered flatly. He began picking at one of his armor-gauntlets, undoing connections. “It is something that few have seen and something that Horde Prime kept hidden even from my memories when I’d returned to his sway.”  
  
The gauntlet popped open with a hiss and he pulled it free. Pickles gasped at the emaciated and scarred arm beneath.   
  
“Prime used struts and under-armor – not this model; this is Entrapta’s – to disguise my condition while he assigned me to the lower decks.”   
  
“What…what is this?” Pickles started in fear.   
  
“A combination of factors; There was a defect in my cloning – mainly, it was responsible for my…um…tendency to break programming. I was ‘purified’ on an extensive basis and that added to my physical damage.”   
  
Pickles gave him a knowing nod and a little shiver. The purification-ritual had always been unpleasant to say the least. It sometimes left marks that were slow to heal, but it was required of everyone to deny their existence. If Horde Prime said that they were not there, they simply were not there.   
  
“I also had inadequate nutrition without access to the amniotic fluid and worked with a substitute of my own invention. Entrapta and I have been sequencing a better replacement from samples of the true fluid that the rest of you are living off as reserves – so worry not for the future. As it is, I am no longer actively dying, but I am not strong, either. The damage you see is permanent. I gave myself multiple surgeries and built armor to compensate for the damage and to stave off the deterioration. Entrapta has built me even better armor. I am not the strength that you would seek.”   
  
“That means…” Pickles began, “That you’re even stronger, then. Since you’ve lived this way for a long time.”   
  
Hordak’s right ear flicked in irritation. “My will is strong and I do believe that I could easily dominate all of you, but I will not do so. The Princesses scarcely believe it, but I have lost my taste for conquest.”   
  
“We are dying.” 

  
“Not all of you.”   
  


“I…I have friends!” Pickles ventured. “Already! Not just among the brethren!”   
  
“That is right. Remember that. Just because you are alone inside your head now does not mean that you are alone.”  
  
“Bow is very nice!” Pickles said, rapidly nodding.   
  
“He always was,” Hordak grunted, “Sickeningly so.”   
  
Pickles sighed as he calmed himself down. He was staring at Hordak’s arm as Hordak replaced his gauntlet.   
  
“Is it… is it worth it?” He asked.  
  
“Existence, you mean?”   
  
Pickles gave a slow nod.   
  
“Existence is painful,” Hordak answered honestly, “But its imperfections are beautiful. It is very much worth it.” 


End file.
